The nearly endless number of items which are encountered at various times and places in life require many different handling means. In many cases, the use of one's hands to grip, pick up, or handle various items can be difficult, uncomfortable, or even impossible. Situations such as retrieving golf balls from the bottom of a pond or the process of picking up fallen household items for someone with a physical ailment require specialized gripping aids.
One such situation is that of accessing and handling objects from the confines of a motor vehicle. Many common situations require a driver or passenger to handle objects through the window of such a vehicle. Such situations include drive-throughs restaurants, toll booths, ticket dispensers, drive up ATMs, and the like. Such situations may require a driver to unbuckle to reach through a window, strain from their seat, or even exit the vehicle.
Various attempts have been made to provide item handling implements and extenders. Examples of these attempts can be seen by reference to U.S. Pat. No. 3,463,533, issued in the name of Repiscak et al., describes an arm extender device. The Repiscak device is a long cylinder with a hook disposed at a distal end to allow the manipulation of side view mirrors from the driver's seat of a vehicle.
U.S. Pat. No. 5,402,550, issued in the name of Lessard, describes a arm extending device for sponges and the like. The Lessard device allows a user to attach an object onto the end of a curved arm via a bracket assembly.
Additionally, ornamental designs for an arm extender exist, particularly U.S. Pat. Nos. D 367,597 and D 507,408. However, none of these designs are similar to the present invention.
While these devices fulfill their respective, particular objectives, each of these references suffer from one or more of the aforementioned disadvantages. Many such devices do not collapse for easy storage. Also, many such devices do not provide both pushing and pulling capabilities or provide the user with precise pushing capabilities for extended activation of small push buttons and the like. Also, many such devices do not allow a user to clamp objects as small as ATM cards and the like. Furthermore, many such devices do not provide storage sections for small objects such as coins and the like which a user may wish to extend. Accordingly, there exists a need for an extendable gripping device without the disadvantages as described above. The development of the present invention substantially departs from the conventional solutions and in doing so fulfills this need.